Europe rushes to fortify staffs of care facilities
Troops have been deployed to London hospitals. Health care workers infected with COVID-19 are treating patients in France. The Netherlands is under a lockdown, and tented field hospitals have gone up in Sicily.
Nations across Europe are scrambling to prop up health systems strained by staff shortages blamed on the new, highly transmissible omicron variant, which is sending a wave of infections crashing over the continent.
“Omicron means more patients to treat and fewer staff to treat them,” Stephen Powis, national medical director at Britain’s National Health Service, said Friday.
The World Health Organization said Thursday that a record 9.5 million COVID-19 cases were tallied globally over the last week, a 71% increase from the previous 7-day period.
“Just like previous variants, omicron is hospitalizing people, and it’s killing people,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “In fact, the tsunami of cases is so huge and quick that it is overwhelming health systems around the world.”
That was evident Friday in London, where some 200 military personnel, including 40 medics, were being deployed to hospitals struggling to deliver vital care amid “exceptional” staff shortages blamed on the number of workers who are ill or isolating because of COVID19.
French authorities this week began allowing health care workers who are infected with the coronavirus but have few or no symptoms to keep treating patients rather than selfisolate.
In Palermo, Sicily, auxiliary facilities were set up in front of three hospitals to relieve the pressure on emergency rooms and to allow ambulance crews to get patients into beds instead of waiting in the parking lot.